Episode 48 - The Carnegie Medal for Writing Shortlist

Together with expert Carnegie followers Alison Jewitt and Amy McKay we go through the Carnegie Medal for Writing shortlist and make our ill fated predictions for the winners.

Alison Jewitt is an English teacher at the London Nautical City of London Academy has led a Carnegie shadowing group in her school for many years and this is her third year helping us review the list.

Amy McKay is the librarian at Ullswater Community College, Penrith. She leads Carnegie shadowing at her school and has a long history with the Carnegies, having been the awards co-ordinator for the Carnegies which included overseeing the National shadowing scheme.

The full Carnegie Medal for Writing Shortlist is:

Ghostlines by Katya Balen (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
Not Going to Plan by Tia Fisher (Hot Key Books)
Popcorn by Rob Harrell (Piccadilly Press)
The Boy I Love by William Hussey (Andersen Press)
Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody by Patrick Ness, illustrated by Tim Miller (Walker)
Wolf Siren by Beth O’Brien (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
Twenty-Four Seconds from Now by Jason Reynolds (Faber & Faber)
Birdie by J. P. Rose (Andersen Press)

Lots more information about the awards and all the resources that are mentioned can be found here.

We have a second episode coming up looking at the illustration shortlist.

Transcript

Katy 0:11

Hi, I'm Katy.

Ali 0:13

I'm Ali,

Katy 0:13

and welcome to Mostly Book Talk.

Ali 0:16

In this episode, we discuss the Carnegie Medal for Writing Books.

Katy 0:20

And look at next week when we do another episode on the Carnegie Medal for Illustration shortlist. Enjoy. So we're really pleased to have with us today Alison Jewitt from the London Nautical City of London Academy, where she's an English teacher, head of PHSE, and runs their Carnegie Shadowing. And also Amy McKay, who is from Ullswater Community College, and she is a librarian there and again leads all of their Carnegie shadowing. So we're going to talk about the Carnegie Medal for Writing today. And we're going to go through each of the books and give some feedback about what we thought about it, what shadowers thought about it, and then at the end we will do our doomed attempts at guessing who's going to win and who the shadowers will vote for. So we're going to start out with Ghostlines. Going through in alphabetical order, so that's the only reason for the order. Ghostlines, the author is Katya Balen at Bloomsbury Children's Books. And this is a story set on a remote Scottish island with lots of puffins. Tilda's lived there the whole of her life and she knows everyone. And she thinks it's perfect, and nothing should really change. And Albie and his mother arrive on the island, and Tilda is determined to befriend him and make him love the island as much as she does. But Albie really doesn't want to be there, and they go off on an adventure to a forbidden island as part of her attempt to make him love being there. So who wants to start? Alison, do you want to start? What do you think? What do your shadows think of this one?

Alison 2:03

I like this one. It feels very Carengie-y just making up words. It's a really lovely story. All the descriptions of the kind of setting is really lovely. And the dealing of the kind of grief is really well handled. And I love the relationship between the characters, the children with each other, but also the children and the adults. I think it's a really lovely story. Well, the way that my shadowing group works is that we have copies of all of the books, and then the students choose one to take away, and then we come back together and they talk about what they like, don't like, they either swap it out or keep it to finish it, or whatever. So this one went out immediately, so it was chosen quite quickly. Sometimes some sit there for a while, which we'll get to later. This one did go out quickly, but we had mixed, mixed reviews. One of the boys finished it and liked it. He said he thought it was nicely written, uh, but it wasn't really that interesting to him. He just liked how it was written. And another boy didn't finish it because he said nothing's really happening. So it's a bit of a mixed bag. I like it. I'm not sure it's for teenage boys.

Katy 3:16

Fair. Okay. But do you know the reader you would give it to?

Alison 3:20

Yes. I think the one that did finish it is the kind of boy I would give it to. He wanted to read something that had good writing that he could then try and learn from. He wanted it to he wanted to learn how to write better creative writing himself. And I think this is a beautiful one for that.

Katy 3:37

Okay. Excellent. All right then. Amy, what did your shadowers make of it? What did you make of it?

Amy 3:42

Yeah, it's been really popular for us. I think really Katya can do no wrong when she's writing, and this is the example of her best style of writing. It is, as Alison says, to paraphrase, it's a quiet novel, it's about the character, it's not a big in-your-face issue. But what I think she does perfectly is bring the island of Airie to life. It becomes almost a character in itself. There's a really strong sense of place. And maybe because or despite that, my shadowers or a lot of them are really connected with this. We live in quite a rural community, or lots of different rural communities. So the love that she feels has for her island is very similar to the love that a lot of my shadowers have for the rural communities that they live in and their focus on farming. And we have so many young people who they know what they're going to be when they grow up, and they can't understand why anyone would want to live a life different to the one that they're living. So they really understood Tilda. But then there are others. I thought it was brilliant.

Katy 5:11

Yeah. As you say, she is an incredibly accomplished storyteller, and it is a great story. It is a quiet story. You do feel pulled in or attached to a number of characters, and also the island. I got quite into the puffins and how they clearly they were part of the rhythm of the island, their seasons and their comings and goings, and everything else was obviously so much part of living somewhere like that. And I liked the idea that they go off to the Forbidden Island. And I don't think this is any sort of giveaways that they discover later that actually their parents aren't really that surprised at all because every teenager has ever existed on the island has gone off to this forbidden island at some point. And it would be no fun if it wasn't the Forbidden Island, but they weren't nearly as alarmed as I think the young people thought that they would be by them having gone there. And I thought that was quite nice. And I thought that relationship between Tilda, isn't it, and Albie is really nice.

Ali 6:14

It was interesting, I think, watching Tilda see the island through Albie's eyes and start to understand her brother a bit more, Rowan, because Rowan's left the island and at the start of the book she just can't get her head around that at all. It's also quite ambiguous what's happened to Rowan. So I I was quite worried quite a long time in that book about where Rowan was. I don't know if that's a spoiler or not. I don't know.

Katy 6:39

No, I don't think it I mean you do discover reasonably early on.

Ali 6:42

Yeah, but I was really worried because of the way she talks about him and her kind of how cross she was and how he's not responding to her. And then as she grows and as she understands herself a bit more, she's able to it's about Albi, isn't it? Coming to Love the Island, but it's also about Tilda accepting that there is more than one way to live your life and that people leave but people come back, and that is is a kind of it's a lesson for all of us to learn. But Kathy's writing is beautiful, and I think the way she does those story arcs for that age of child are just brilliant, and you totally believe in those characters, and you can see yourself down having a massive bonfire on the beach, which would be really nice, actually.

Amy 7:25

The other thing I wanted to point out is one of the great things about Carnegie's shadowing is that there are so many resources created already that group leaders can pick up, and even if they've not read the books at the start of the shortlist when the shortlist is announced, there's so much guidance, and most of those resources are written either by librarians themselves or by different partners, such as CLPE. So, how I run my group is I introduce a different book every week, and we do an activity based on that book as a way of helping the students into the book of introducing it. A lot of the time it's books that they wouldn't naturally pick up. So for this one, we did a really we did two actually. We decorated our own kayaks made out of cardboard. If you're looking at the Illustration Award, one of the books is all about paper craft and card craft, so it was inspired by that as well. And we decorated mine, it was a beautiful mermaid kayak. I was really quite proud of it. And then I had a really intense game of Uno as well, which was great fun with all the book club students, and they got really rowdy. So I just wanted really to give a shout out to all the resources that were available, and that we're not doing it on our own. The awards help with the process.

Katy 8:36

Yeah, then that those are two really nice ways in it. And you reminded me then of the other thing that I really liked about it was the idea that they all got these specially decorated canoes, and that that was almost the rite of passage, wasn't it? Was getting your own canoe and uh and what decoration would be on it. Okay, so Ali, do you want to introduce the next one?

Ali 8:56

Yeah, so our second book is Not Going to Plan by Tia Fisher, which is published by Hotkey Books. Arnie is sharp, creative and impulsive, and has just been expelled from a private school and starting over at New Comprehensive, where the only free seat is next to Zed, who is a maths genius. It's told in verse, it's a verse novel, and uh yeah, rather think about what people thought about this one.

Katy 9:21

Yeah, so I think Amy, did you say that your shadowers hadn't you haven't done this one, so you don't feel you can comment on this one? Okay, that's right. All right, so Alison, what would you what did yours think?

Alison 9:33

Loved it. This is really popular with mine. Mine loved Crossing the Line, and they really loved this. They love verse novels anyway, but they love the way that Tia Fisher does it with the shapes that she uses as part of the verse novel. They liked the dual narrative that it has both character stories literally side by side on the page and how they interact with each other, and they liked the issues and how they were dealt with. This one's really been popular with my group.

Ali 10:00

Yeah, I read it a little while ago actually. I like verse novels because I think you get to the point of everything really quickly, don't you? I don't know. It felt some of it felt a little bit harsh the way it was all dealt with at the end. I don't know. I'm trying to think with the story. Uh was it too far? I don't know. Had Marnie gone too far, and obviously the guy had clearly gone too far, but that kind of I don't know whether it was whether there's enough time to deal with all the issues that there are in that and whether it's a story that actually, if you're gonna have that sort of conversation, you need it through a lens of an adult around as well to talk it through. So I think if you'd pick that book up and read it on your own, you might have a lot of questions and you mi might not know where to go and ask those questions.

unknown 10:45

Yeah.

Katy 10:45

I think what Alison was saying about being a verse novel and then being really popular, and that ability of just getting through a story really quickly, and it is quite sparsely told because it's in verse, and I can see that being really popular. It is very accessible format, it's the speed of it, I think, that that the young people like. And we we know that from all the feedback we get about verse novels and how well they work. And I think it's a difficult, it's a tough issue. We haven't really said it in terms of the subject matter, but it is about a Marnie sleeps with a boy and I can't remember his name. Do we even know his name? We do know his name, don't we? Yeah, we do. And uh and he lies about using contraception and she finds herself pregnant. I don't think that's that's any kind of giveaway or anything. And so it's obviously a an issue that needs to be handled really carefully. And I think however you did it, you will end up with people who feel that it could have been done differently. It's one of those topics, isn't it? And then in some ways that's great because then it's a really good source of debate in terms of when young people read it, they can go, well, that shouldn't have happened, or that was right, or that was wrong, or whatever. And I think it it is one of those issues where there will be a variety of views as to how you would have approached the those issues, what decisions were made, what retaliation was taken, all of those things. I think it's a thought-provoking read and one that will generate discussion, and I can see why it's been popular with your students.

Alison 12:21

Yeah, and I think the kind of issues around the climax and the I without spoilers, are all around the kind of climax and how she ultimately deals with it is very much a kids' book kind of way of dealing with it, right? Like, you know, in reality, the reaction from the teacher would not be the reaction that was in the book, that there's just no way anyone would get away with doing what she did. Um, but that's kids' book world where everything is solved in this dramatic way in the end, and everyone lives happily ever after. And I I think I obviously have a problem with that as an adult, but none of the kids seem to have any problem with that. They expect that sort of ending, which I think is interesting. Yeah.

Katy 13:04

They still want books which have a that are resolved at the end. A tidy ending, which as we all know, life doesn't work like that.

Alison 13:11

Yeah, yeah. They want the good guys to win, the bad guys to get their comeuppance and everything to be finished nicely.

Katy 13:17

Yeah. Okay. Anything else you want to say about that? I think it will be it is for the older age group. I suppose that's worth saying, isn't it? That Ghost Lines is very much a middle grade book, and it would be upper key stage two and to year seven. This is very much a key stage three and probably upper key stage three book, isn't it? Yeah, definitely. And key stage four. I wouldn't give it to a year seven, I don't think. Did you give it to a year sevens? No.

Alison 13:42

Well, they they have free choice, so it's been most popular with year eight and nine. Um yeah, but they will because the others are raving about it.

Katy 13:49

Okay. Moving on to the next one. Ali, do you want to introduce us?

Ali 13:53

Yeah, sure. So this is Popcorn by Rob Harrell, who's the author and illustrator, and it's published by Piccadilly Press, which is part of Bonnier Books. Andrew is a seventh grader, so year seven, I suppose, with anxiety and OCD trying to get through the school photo day looking pristine, but the world tries to thwart him. So it's a mix of prose and art, so it's an accessible mixed media kind of book.

Katy 14:19

Do you want to start on this one, Amy?

Amy 14:21

Yeah, sure. So I really enjoyed the format of this, the fact that it all happens over the course of one school day. Eyeshadow is really related to that, and that idea that so much can happen in one day, particularly when you're year seven, year eight, that sort of age, a day can feel like a lifetime. I think he balances humour and serious subjects really well, and as Ali said, makes it very accessible, talks about it in a way that his audience will really connect with. There were great portrayal of mental health and how it might feel to have anxiety and panic attacks. There's the metaphor of anxiety being like popcorn in your belly, which was great. I thought it was accomplished. Is it a book that I think I'll remember in the next two years? Probably not. But as I was reading it, I enjoyed it, and my shadowers are enjoying it as well.

Alison 15:18

This was an interesting one with the shadowers because it wasn't an immediate one to pick up. When I flicked through them to show them what the inside was like, then we had a couple of takers. And then I also have a reading teachers group at school, and they've been shadowing as well. And one of the PE teachers said that he didn't like it because it reminded him of Die over Wimpy Kid, which was the greatest marketing ploy ever, because then suddenly they all wanted it, because it's like Direva Wimpy Kid, which is nothing like Dire over Wimpy Kid, but I guess because it has illustrations. But even though they took it, they're not raving about it. One of the boys has had it for a long time, he doesn't want to swap it out, he wants to finish it. He says he's finding it really hard to get into it, and I can understand that it's quite heavy. The anxiety is portrayed so well that it makes you feel anxious reading it, and I think that's a lot for a 12-year-old, 11, 12-year-old who's who from my group has it just now. So yeah, I'm a bit on the fence about this one in terms of who it's for. If I knew a kid who had really extreme anxiety, I wouldn't be giving them this book.

Katy 16:27

So I'm not sure who it's who it's for, really. Okay. I mean, I I think, you know, echo that. I think that the clearly the layout, the pros, the art and everything that makes it and the way in which it's been done over that with the pace over a day makes it very accessible and urgent. I think I just felt that it could have had a stronger storyline in the sense in that that all of the bits about the anxiety and everything were done very well. And as you say, you could feel that, but I wasn't pulled through enough by the story, was my issue with it. But uh there were some really funny bits, unintentional and unintentional, and yeah, and as you say, it does really accomplish that sense of getting inside the understanding what it feels to be that anxious and how that can creep up on you when you don't necessarily expect it, and how it feels, and trying to control it and all of those things. Um it's very effective in that sense. But I think I've I was a bit like you, I struggle as to which child would I give this to to read. And I'm I'm not entirely sure. Ali, what did you think?

Ali 17:31

I feel it was great that it was about the specific thing and the day, and you know, those day stories are quite good. Those ones where everything happens really fast and it's a kind of whirlwind. But I felt I read the story before. Is that a bit harsh?

Alison 17:45

It's a bit like that Alexander and the terrible, horrible, what's it called? The horrible bad day one. Yeah, I don't it's uh it says loads of words of the that mean the same thing in the title. Do you know what I mean?

Katy 17:57

I don't I can't remember. Yeah. No. It's a bit like that. Yeah. Okay. Well, moving on then. Yeah. So our next book is The Boy I Love by William Hussey, published by Anderson Press. It is set in 1916. 19-year-old second, and I'm gonna get this wrong. Are we left tenant or lieutenant? We're leftenant. This is a product of American schooling. Lieutenants for American. Okay, so 1916, 19. Oh, that's what I want to say about popcorn. It felt really American.

Amy 18:25

Yes, yes.

Katy 18:26

Okay.

Amy 18:33

So if anyone's read popcorn and thought it was all right, Wink is to me so much stronger and it's really worth a read if you've enjoyed popcorn.

Katy 18:42

Okay, brilliant. Sorry, I just had to, I just suddenly remembered that. I just felt it's in an American school, it feels very American school-y, and that was just something that I felt about it as well, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's just it obviously plays slightly differently for an English audience. Okay, so I'm gonna go back to it's 1916, and 19-year-old second lieutenant Stephen Rexel has returned, he goes he's going back to the Western Front having been injured and having actually been given the opportunity not to go back, but he's gone back, he's brokenhearted because his previous love has died, and he's on the journey to the trenches, he meets uh Private Danny Danny, that's it, Private Danny McCormick, who is kind and full of life, and he f he feels this idea that he wants to save him in some way, doesn't he? And protect him. And he is his officer's squire, isn't it? Is it officer's?

Ali 19:42

Yeah, it's your kind of s servant, isn't it? But uh Danny doesn't like the word servant, so he's like, I won't be your servant, but I will be your squire.

Katy 19:49

Yep. Okay. And it's the run-up to the Battle of the Somme, and they are yeah, it's about their relationship, it's about their love, which is doubly forbidden both by the army and the rest of society, and and about just that horrible build-up to the psalm where they're they they actually are doing some intelligence work and are saying, I'm not sure some of these assumptions are quite right. And I think we know as readers, and that that's an interesting point, is we as adult readers know what happened in the Psalm. I don't know how many younger readers might necessarily know, but they will do by the end of this book. Um, it's very moving. It's one of the ones that made me cry. Amy, do you want to start on this one?

Amy 20:37

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. It is a really emotional read. I think the fact that as a reader, you read it with more of an idea of what's coming than maybe they have, and I think even for our shadowers, they may not know the details of the Battle of the Song, but they've got a good idea that this isn't gonna go well, and that's sort of the futility of war, I think, is captured so well all the way through. It's a book that I read with a stone in my stomach, just that sense of impending doom and dread. It really is so atmospheric, and the bleakness of the trenches really comes through, it's like you're there with them, and then I love how that was balanced out with this budding romance between Stephen and Danny. That was really handled, and it was it was a real slow burn, wasn't it? And you could feel it burning. I thought, yeah, brilliant, really enjoyed it. I appreciated the ending. I think that was very well handled as an author, particularly an author for this age group. It could have been quite different, and I imagine there might have been a little bit of internal pressure about how that was going to end and to make sure it was a faithful, realistic, respectful ending. I think William Hussey's done that perfectly. Yeah, can't recommend it enough, and my shadowers have really enjoyed it. It's one that they've instantly. Gravitated towards

Katy 22:02

Alison.

Alison 22:03

So unfortunately, this is the exact opposite experience in what in my school in terms of the shadowing group. But I think that's this is where I said earlier about how some of the books get grabbed up right away and some don't. Unfortunately, the title of this book and the cover of this book has meant that I have struggled to get boys to take it. And it's a real shame. And I'm glad that we've got Sora this year, because Sora have made available the shortlisted books to be able to read them as ebooks, which means that there are boys who are reading it or who have read it, but none of that are openly reading it. We had one boy take it, but then he decided not to take it out of his bag, so he gave it back. And then another boy has taken it over the holidays now and he's determined he's gonna read it because I've bigged it up so much, because I think it's great. We did have a really interesting conversation though after I'd read it and I was telling them it was great. This conversation about the cover and about the title, because all of them are interested in the story, all of them were interested in the the World War One setting, and and none of them care about that it's it's a gay story. It's the cover and the title that's the issue. They don't want to explain to other people what they're reading, because it's and it's sad. So it's a romance. It's a romance, yeah. It's a romance and and it is a it is very clearly a gay romance, right? It's the boy I love with two boys on the front. I wish that this wasn't the reality, but the reality in in boys' school is that very few kids feel confident enough to walk around with a book that looks like that, even if they're happy to defend anyone who is gay, even they're happy to argue the toss that these books should exist, that they they agree with them everything, even if they would be willing to read it if it had a different cover and a different title. So it's a it's a real shame because I think it's a really good book. It's a book about the first world war that has a love story in it, and they're missing out because they're worried about the title and the cover. The cover is very much romance though, like that that current uh trend of having those kind of cartoony romance covers, it it's very much in that world. And maybe if it had that title but had a different cover, I don't know. But I minor struggling. I loved it. I did his audiobook, it was great.

Katy 24:26

But yeah, yeah. So it isn't just that it's a romance, it's a gay romance, but they probably wouldn't have read it if it was a if it was a romance full stop. But there's an extra layer that makes it hard for them to carry around. So if it was the girl I love, they probably wouldn't have carried it around either. No.

Ali 24:41

It's interesting, isn't it, about book covers and titles. I loved it, I love William Hussey. I read everything that he's written. He has a really good adult book called Killing Jericho, the Jericho series, which is a traveller detective, which is fantastic as well. I love the way he writes, I love how, as you said, Amy, you know what's coming as an adult reader. And I think for me, the last time I read or watched something that had that impending doom about the First World War was Black Adder in that moment when they I kept seeing that. That moment where they go over the top and it all slows, and then there's just poppy fields.

Alison 25:21

So I think as a and as an adult too, you've got that impending doom about the other, I can't remember his name, but the other officer who clearly knows that they're gay. We know as adults that have knowledge of this history, we know that that's gonna be a problem, and maybe the children reading it they don't know that. So there's this double impending doom for us that maybe doesn't translate for kids. Yeah.

Katy 25:44

I mean it's incredibly vivid. The scene with the rats coming out for the breadcrumbs, I'm gonna take quite a long time to forget. And it captures just the sheer unimaginable horror of it and the fact that these are they're 18 and 19. Oh yeah, they're children. They are children, and we've sent they were in this, you know, suddenly fighting wars. And he brings out that not only were they children, but when they do have some German prisoners that that they're children as well, and that they're they are basically a bunch of 18 and 19-year-old kids who have already faced just unspeakable horrors and the ridiculousness that somebody thinks that worrying about their relationship and their homosexuality was in some way. Relevant or important relevant or important or anything. It just brings home uh that ridiculousness of it.

Ali 26:44

But the other thing that I was got I find quite interesting as well, which I'd not really I think I've read somewhere, is that kind of getting away from the front line and having those moments where they're in that villa, aren't they? And there's a massive puddle that they go to swim. It's not a puddle, it's they go crater.

Katy 26:59

Like a crater.

Ali 27:03

So there was those kind of moments of joy away from and that lovely officer who let them have that moment as well. I can't remember what his name was, who knew Jackson. So yeah, this is my favourite. I'm sure, yeah, anyway. I've made everyone read it. I've just been wandering around with copies of it, handing it out.

Katy 27:23

Yeah, I did enjoy it, but I did feel, as you said, that just I I'm not very good at reading books where I just kind of waiting for the horrible thing to happen, and you think, oh, can we just get to it and then I can relax? But I did resist flipping through, which is I don't always resist, do I? No. Okay. Good. So good. Then in a complete contrast, another favourite of mine. We have the chronicles of lizard nobody. I'm laughing because it is bonkers. The author is Patrick Ness, it's illustrated by Tim Miller, and it is published by Walker Books. And this features Zeke, who is a monitor lizard, he's a bit large for his age, apparently, and he's recently moved to a new school through some process of hot monitor lizards being bussed to a school. So there's that going on. And he he, with a number of other monitor lizards, is appointed to hall monitor by Principal Wombat, which of course has nothing to do with them being monitored with lizards. It's just a coincidence. And there's a supervillain or bully, isn't there, and in the um form of pelicanassus. I think I've said that right. He is a very large and vicious pelican, and he doesn't like this authority that they've been given as monitors, and also uh is just generally quite troublesome, really. And then there are just like random things like Zeke has France on his knee in a way for reasons that are not entirely.

Ali 28:52

You do find you do find out at some point why, but it's very random.

Katy 28:56

It's very random, so it is just completely bonkers. So, Alison, how did your readers react to this one?

Alison 29:03

They like it. I love it. That is so funny, it's so weird, it's just brilliant. I love it. Younger boys took it initially. I think there was a kind of feeling like it was for younger children. So, like year sevens and eights took it, but then after I'd read it and I was telling them how insane it is and how it's just really silly and really funny, then some year nines have taken it as well. Yeah, I think it is just bonkers, but I love it, and it's so different from anything else Patrick Ness has done. It's just great.

Katy 29:33

Yeah, it is really when you think of how bleak some of her stories are, um, it's a complete contrast. Yeah, you do feel that he's had fun writing it, and there are just mad bits in it. Amy, what did your shadows think?

Amy 29:47

Mine have been two halves really for this one. Some of them have just loved the absurdity of it and just rolled with it and relished all of that. There's other students who are struggled a bit more to give themselves over to that and just take it for what it is and just enjoy a bit of a weird story. It's not their favourite overall, but there are one or two that are big fans.

Katy 30:12

Yeah. I can get it that there would be readers who just like constantly be waiting for it to make sense and feel a bit like, can someone just make this make sense? Whereas you just have to, as you say, relax into the madness of it. I think children who'd enjoyed things like Grimwood, which is also just totally mad, and those kind of books that are just full of things that don't necessarily make sense, but are there's an internal logic if you look hard enough, and I think it's uh it's just very lighthearted. Ali, come on. I know you love this.

Ali 30:42

I love it, I just love the absurdity of it. I read it in proof form, which they send you one you could colour in the outside, which is perfect. And it's just bonkers. I love that Zeke is kind, he's got his mum that he's looking after. There's all of that going on. The fact, as you say, Katy, they're bust in, so they're obviously not from this part of town. There's all that going on, but under underneath it all, there's just a whole load of lizards and a pelican having a big scrap somewhere in I think feels like America, but it could be anywhere. And France on his knee is just an added bonus, frankly. Yeah. And the fact that twice a day, I think it isn't it, the planes you can fly into France. So he has to be somewhere still, so it's not a bumpy ride for the planes, and then the rest of the time he just carries on, and France is just on his knee ooh la laring, basically.

Katy 31:35

Yeah, but he has to wear shorts all year round, doesn't he?

Ali 31:38

So that the planes can land.

Katy 31:39

But it's not entirely without kind of messages around kindness and bullying and all of those things and the advantages of uh one bat's bottoms, little known facts, it's just very silly. Oh, okay. I think we've probably done that one. Next one, Ali, do you want to introduce this one?

Ali 31:57

Uh where are we now? We are Wolf Siren, which is Beth O'Brien, and this is Harper Collins Children's Books. Red lives in a village bordered by an enchanted wood where wolves prowl and disappearances happen. She sees the world in blurs of colour and movement, and the forest seems to speak to her in ways it doesn't for others. And her dad, I think, disappeared without a trace, didn't he? It's very atmospheric, and there's lots of secrets and fear and suspicion, and it's about her going into the woods and her kind of relationship with it, which we find out more about as we read it. It isn't her dad, is it? Her dad has died, and it's her dad.

Katy 32:38

Yeah, it's her grandmother disappeared into the woods, and her dad has died, hasn't he? Yeah. So who wants to start with this one? Amy, do you want to start?

Amy 32:46

Yeah, this has been really popular with my shadowers. They do tend to quite enjoy retellings of other stories of fairy tales and mythology. So this was like I was quite confident giving them this one. It's bold, it's feminist, and it there's messages about respect to nature in there, characters, absolutely fantastic, and this sense of control and how women are controlled for just the comfort of men, and so as not to upset men or make them feel bad about themselves, it's so well done, and it's such a conversation starter. I love that it talks about periods. Any book that can usualise periods is a winner for me, especially for this age group. Red has a visual impairment. I think that's really well handled, and she still has agency and autonomy over herself. It's really it is very well done. Yeah, loved it. It's been really popular with my shadowers. This is one that happily I've been able to give them, and then they bring it back really quickly. So we've been able to we've got a few copies of each, but we've been able to share this one nicely because they really go with it.

Katy 33:55

Yeah. Alison, you're

Alison 33:58

very very similar. It's been really popular as well. It's it was the first one to to be picked, it's been first ones to be returned, so they're picked back up again. Yeah, really, really popular one. It reminds me a bit of that movie, The Village, the M right Shyamalan movie. Do you get what I mean? Just a like a bit that same sort of vibe. But yeah, I think it's great. Uh it's a great retelling of Red Riding Hood.

Amy 34:24

I want to ignore the fairy tales and I want a full series from her.

Katy 34:28

That would be great. This is one of my favourites, if not my favourite. I really loved the whole the how atmospheric the forest was, the as you were talking about, all of those power relationships that were going on that she sort of peels back from within the community. The way that there are, and I think this is what I like about retellings of fairy tales, is that there are sort of echoes of so many other stories in it, and you have that sense when you're reading it of kind of knowing the story or having heard the story or knowing how this goes, and then she turns some of those expectations on their head, but there are still insufficient numbers of familiar lines that run through it that bring it into that collection of fairy tales and retellings of it and challenging some of the standard interpretations. And I I just loved it. I think it's a really beautiful book as well. I think that's why people want to hold on to it. The cover of it is so lovely, and I'm really interested that the boys liked it as well. Because I I was worried that you were going to say, oh no, they didn't want to read a you know, fairy tales are for babies, and also a feminist retelling of fairy tales. I mean that so I'm luckily it doesn't say feminist on the cover, so we're all gonna shh don't tell them about it.

Ali 35:48

Exactly. You lure them into the story, like into the forest, and little do they know that they're getting a full story. Now, I really enjoyed it as well, so it's a good book and a great one to share. I think there's lots to think about in it.

Katy 36:02

And I think what it does really bring out is how fundamental, um if you read the illustration shortlist as well, the wild folk book there is how fundamental forests and woods are to children's stories, and just they're just at that heart of so many stories, and then this just brings it alive in many ways. Brilliant. Okay, I'll stop going because that is it is probably my favorite. I'll stop talking about it. So the next one we have, we're nearly there, we've nearly got through. Wait, we're on number seven now, is 24 seconds from now, which is Jason Reynolds, and the publisher is Faber and Faber, and this is about 17-year-old Neon, who when the book starts, he's locked in his girlfriend's Aria's bathroom, and it's 24 seconds before they're going to have sex for the first time, and he is absolutely terrified. And uh it goes back for 24 minutes, 24 hours, 24 days, 24 weeks, and then 24 months in terms of how their story has developed. It is a book about sex with no sex in it. Uh, who wants to go first? Amy, you're about to say something. Amy, go on.

Amy 37:11

Yeah, I oh I love this one. I don't think anybody can hold a torture really to Jason Reynolds and how he writes, boys and male adolescents. It's just it's honest, it's warm. You get he's fearful, he's about to lose his virginity, and there's no brashness to him. It's honest, it's raw, it's a complete response to all these ideas of toxic masculinity and what we're told boys are. Actually, this is who a lot of boys are, and they're really lovely individuals. I love the format of it of the whole seeing Neon and Arya's relationship in reverse and how it's developed, and pulling in of his family history and his grandma, and him walking into the cemetery to see grandpa, and it's just full of love. It's sparked some fantastic conversations with my shadowers as well. Yeah, uh, it's great. I mentioned before all the stuff on the website, and one of the things that you get with every book is a shadowers challenge that is set by the author illustrator. And if you're only going to do one of those with your groups, then Jason Reynolds Shadowers Challenger is the one to do. I won't say what it is, I'll leave him to say that, but it was just perfect. It was a really lovely meeting that we had when we concentrated on this book, and it was one of those that as a shadowing group leader, it was everything that I dream a shadowing meeting might be, and it's a book that I know I'm gonna be recommending for years to come.

Katy 38:43

Yeah, I think it's great. Alison, what how how did it go down with yours?

Alison 38:46

Well, this was a popular one to take in the first place because one, Jason Reynolds, everyone loves Jason Reynolds, and two because it's about sex, so that obviously made it really popular immediately, and it has a boy as a main character, that's even better. But then it stalled quite dramatically. I didn't read it till after some of the boys had, and so I think my reading of it was skewed by their opinion of it, but they did not like the format, they felt like it killed the momentum. Every time the story got going, it stopped and went back in time, and then it started, then it stopped and went back in time. So they they found it really hard to get through it. So when I read it, I felt very similarly. I don't know if that's because I was taking on board what they'd said, and normally I love everything Jason Reynolds does, but I don't know about this one. I love the kind of healthy relationship, I love the way that they have these really healthy conversations, that they've been a couple for a long time, that they're happy that he talks to his mum about it, that there's this very clear consent going on. All of that is amazing and really well done. And I love like at the end when Jason Reynolds writes that black boys deserve love stories too, and I just think yes, they do. And luckily, this one isn't called The Girl I Love, so the boys are taking it. But I think the format has made it harder for them to read it.

Ali 40:11

That's interesting. That is interesting because I loved it and I loved all the conversations, loved all the conversations that everyone was having, that kind of opportunity to go for a ride in the car. And as a kid, you're probably like, Yes, I know what's coming now. We're having the chats. But it was just so nicely done, and I really yeah, I really enjoyed it. It's a book again that we've told lots of people about and shared widely as a book, as Katy said, it's a book about sex that has no sex in it. So it's about consent and about respect and about finding out who you are, and it's great.

Katy 40:44

Yeah, I think it's interesting that the structure was an issue. I quite liked that because it just sort of almost gave you a pause to fill in the gaps because as you moved, because it wasn't entirely linear, you could think about yourself. What were the things that happened between the 24 weeks and the 24 months? And I found that quite powerful in terms of the of how you read the book and how you got into their lives, because it could have almost encouraged you to create those narratives for them and to see and to pick up on how things had shifted, how you could see how things had shifted slightly and changed. And I think as a kind of insight into how relationships do develop and all of those issues about respect, and they take place and develop within the context of your families and your wider friendship group and everything else that you do as well. I liked it. I think he's great, and I think it's a really positive book to read. I we always say this that sometimes some of the books are a bit miserable, and it's all the negative side, and on consent, you look at the lack of consent rather than actually what does consent look like? And I think it's a really good example of what it does look like and a positive view of that. So I think we should carry on recommending it. Maybe with a maybe do you think if your readers had more of a warning that that was how it was being structured, they would have found it easier or uh no, because they knew that's how it was structured.

Alison 42:09

We had a kind of flick through and they did see that. I don't know. There's boys still reading it now, and they'll still keep swapping. So we'll see. The messaging is great, and Jason Reynolds is great. He just writes characters so well, he writes boys so well. So I hope that the messaging gets through anyway.

Katy 42:25

Okay, so now Ali, last and not least. Last or last book is Birdie by JP Rose, which is published by Anderson Press, and it's 1952, and Birdie Bagshaw has grown up in a Leeds children's home for mixed-raised children, the daughters and sons of black American servicemen and white British women. And when a great aunt in Yorkshire, in the Yorkshire mining village, offers her a home, Birdie goes, leaving behind the only family she knows, and she arrives to a really cold, hostile welcome. And it's the kind of uh her discovering who she is, and the heart of the story is her finding her place and the village accepting her as well as that story goes on. We've loved this story, it's part of our book clubs in schools list, and it's one of those stories that we first read it, I don't know, a while ago, didn't we? Right. A long time ago, yeah. When it came out, yeah.

Ali 43:18

And I've really been championing its kind of story and its heart. But um, Amy, what did you and your shadows think about it?

Amy 43:25

Yeah, I agree completely, it is one to champion. I just think it's stunning. I love Birdie's character and her resilience and her determination. I think her mixed raceness is really well handled. It's a bugbearer of mine that we still don't see an awful lot about mixed race people in children's literature. It's not something that's covered a lot and mixed race, a lot of my or some of my shadowers are mixed race, so we've really identified with this book for those reasons. Found it really interesting the The fact that Bertie didn't realise that she was mixed race, I think that is done so well. And when she gets to this village and she meets the family, she can't understand why they're having this reaction to her. And I think that is such a powerful thing. That and the fact that we read, we've all read hundreds of World War II, World War I stories. But how often do you get a post-war story? It was fantastic. It's that again, I think I've mentioned it a few times already, the hidden history and how powerful that can be to find out about a time period that we don't normally cover in literature. I felt it's for people, readers who, if they've enjoyed Michael Morpurgo books previously, maybe in primary school, this is a great next step for them. The village, I think, is really well portrayed. You feel like you're there. And then when we start talking about the Pit ponies, I defy anybody who's read this book to not instantly want to adopt a Pit Pony because I did when I read it, and I still do now.

Katy 45:01

Fair enough. I know that we interviewed Jackie and she's obviously got her own series as well about horses and pony riding now. And she is passionate about horses, and that clearly comes through in this as well. Alison, what did you think? I really like this one as well.

Alison 45:19

I I think it's a really lovely story, and it again it's a part of history that's not really written about in children's books. It's kind of Pollyanner-ish in places, but like in a good way. And I really liked it, but again, I've had trouble with this one as well. I don't know what it is with the shortlist this year, but they're not as appealing to the teenage boy, at least on the surface. So it's been quite hard to get enthusiasm across the shortlist. So this one has not been particularly popular, I must say. And some of the boys don't like that some of it's written in vernacular, they find it hard understand.

Katy 46:00

So yeah, um, it's a shame. I'm gonna keep pushing. I mean, I can see from the cover, it's obviously it's got a picture of a girl on it, and I I think we always say that who what's on the cover, and if it's if there's a girl on the cover or a boy on the cover, it does send really strong signals. I don't know that you could have put anything else on the cover of this. That's a book about birdie, and that's birdie.

Ali 46:21

Just a pit pony, could just giant pit pony on the front.

Katy 46:24

Yeah, yeah. And I would also say that it probably this is one of the more this is a middle grade one as well. It would be middle grade, uh, upper key stage two, and probably yeah, seven and eight, actually, I think you'd go through to, but it is it's one of the younger reads. I loved it. I thought it was brilliant. It was not the other one that made me cry. I cried I when I first read it, I had to stop reading it because I was reading it on the train and I could I just knew that I was going to totally lose it because I could see, you could see where it was going, and I had to stop and come home and finish it and cry in the privacy of my own house. Um there's just so many bits about it. I love the fact that, as you say, it's the kind of bit of history that you don't necessarily see, and there are so many changes that we can anticipate as a modern reader looking back into the history of it, and there's obviously the that whole kind of uh acceptance of or how communities and particularly rural communities reacted to difference and someone of mixed race coming into that community, and you know how that will develop over the next 50-60 years, and also the closing down of the mines, you know that there is a loss of that community and existence as well coming, and so that and you know they're just gonna go into the 60s and 70s that's just major complete cultural change, and that's all to come. And I feel that's something that's special about reading something that's historic and feeding back into it, and and yeah, there are lots of really great characters in there. I loved her, it must be her, it's her uncle, isn't it?

Ali 48:02

Uh great her great uncle, I think.

Katy 48:04

Great uncle, yeah. And I thought he was great, and that also his experience and the legacy of the war in the loss that the communities have experienced, the familial loss, that just that that a country that was still traumatized in lots of ways from the experience of two wars in succession. So there's just so much in that. I really love it.

Ali 48:25

Yeah, it's a book about loss, isn't it? About loss of what's happened and the loss of the world to come. But as you say, we only know that because we're reading it with the lens of looking back. But yeah, it's brilliant. So okay, we have been talking for about 47 years about these books, which is fabulous. Thank you so much. But we should do a quick who do we think will win moment. And who do we think will win? The Shadowers Prize and the Judges Prize. Okay, so Alison, what do you think?

Alison 48:56

I think judges will go to Ghostlines and I think shadowers will go to Not Going to Plan.

unknown 49:03

Okay.

Amy 49:04

I really hope that the judges go with Birdie. I would love to see that as a win. I think it's a real deserving winner. For me, it's the standout, but I think the shadowers will go for 24 Seconds from Now.

Katy 49:18

Okay, interesting. You're gonna put me on the spot now. Yeah, you go now, Katy. Oh, I hope that the judges might go for Wolf Siren. And I think that you're gonna make me pitch for one, is now. I think it is between Not Going to Plan and 24 Seconds from Now. I think it probably will be Not Going to Plan for the shadowers. Okay, I'm going out left field. I'm going Birdie. I want the judges to pick Birdie and the shadowers. I really want them to pick Lizard Nobody. Chronicle of a Lizard Nobody, because we all need more Zeke. And in the current climate where wherever news channel you turn on is just awful and terrible, we all need to just live in a slightly more absurd world. Fair enough. Okay. So we'll see how we're going to be able to do that. Place your bets. Will you be there at the will you be there at the event? I will.

Alison 50:14

We got we got tickets for it, but because it's assessment week, I'm not allowed to take them.

Katy 50:18

No! Did you get like a bone in your neck? So you can't go to school that day. However, suddenly appear at the Carnegies.

Alison 50:25

Oh yes. Yeah. All of the all of the shadowing kids got sick on the same day.

Katy 50:30

I'll write a note. I'll write a note for them. Yeah. And I'll thank you. So just for us to say, thank you very much. We spent an awful long time on this, and it's been brilliant, and we've really enjoyed it. And it's it's always a highlight of our year to read all of the Carnegie's. It's been I really enjoyed doing all the illustrated books as well. And thank you so much for your time. And we loved hearing about your views and the views of your shadows.

Amy 50:55

Thank you very much.